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World Tour Wild Cards 2025

Just as last year, Israel and Lotto gets all WT races and Uno-X gets all WT one day races.

Israel will likely do all three GTs again, while Lotto again will skip the Giro.

That means the picture is probably something like this when it comes to the GT wild cards:
Giro: Israel + 3 PCTs (Polti, Bardiani, Tudor, Q36.5)
Tour: Lotto, Israel + 2 from Total, Tudor and Uno-X
Vuelta: Lotto and Israel + 2 Spanish PCTs.

It's much more open than last season, and some decent teams will be disappointed.

Tudor has signed Alaphilippe and that alone is probably enough for a Tour wild card. The question is wheter Tudor has enough squad debth to do two GTs and/or how it affect their chances that Tudor sponsors the Giro and is a direct competition for Tissot that sponsors the Tour.
Total won a Tour stage last year and as the only (real one, i dont count Tietma) French PCT they are definitively in a good position for a Tour Wild Card.
Uno-X might be in trouble.. Two years in a row they've rode the Tour, but have failed to win a stage. They are also in a pretty weak position with RCS, so I don't see them as capable of sneaking a Giro invite.
My guess: Total and Uno-X, Tudor does the Giro because of the sponsorship collision.

Q36.5 is a wild card in this whole discussion, but after signing Pidcock they are in a better position. I think they could be a good option for the Giro.
Polti and Bardiani are pretty mediocre teams, but they are italian and they always goes in the TV breakaways that the traditionalists in RCS probably loves. I think both of them are in a good position to be picked for the Giro.
My guess: Tudor, Polti and Bardiani.

Vuelta is "always" two Spanish PCTs. Kern Pharma did amazing last year and should get another chance this year. Euskaltel did 2024, so I'll assume it's either Caja Rural or Burgos this time. Caja Rural looks to be the strongest team in my opinion, even if they have lost Aular and Cepeda.
My guess: Kern Pharma and Caja Rural.

Then there will also be a lot of interesting wild cards to the Monuments and the other big classics. Q36.5 should be very attractive for races that suits Tom Pidcock. The two belgian teams Flanders-Baloise and Wagner Bazin will probably get a lot of WC for the belgian one day races and Total, Tudor, Tietma and Polti also have good to decent teams for many classics.
 
The question is wheter Tudor has enough squad debth to do two GTs
Easily.
Even without doubling up, you could e.g. send Hirschi, Dainese with this year's leadout of Froidevaux and Krieger, Voisard, Pluimers, Warbasse and Rondel to the Giro.

Then Alaphilippe, De Kleijn, Zijlaard, Haller, Brenner, Storer, Trentin and Mayrhofer to the Tour.

Both of those lineups are better than the best 8 of 80% of PCTs.
 
Will be painful for UNO X to go back in their progression and not be able to ride a GT. They really need to be in the top 2 of (2026s) Pro Conti's next year but I don't see it happening with ChinAstana and Tudor. They will have to hope that ASO drops one of their French teams or that Arkea just folds after next year to get WCs for the future. And we'll have to wait and see if Q36.5 gets better, cause they could give them some competition too.

Or ASO surprises and leaves Total at home but given the influence of the French government on the Tour I don't see it happening. Or they leave Tudor at home but that would just be stupid, they already have a squad that's better than multiple WT teams and the first week of the Tour is perfect for both Alaphilippe and Hirschi.
 
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I'd be surprised if ASO had anyone other than Tudor as their #1 choice for the Tour or indeed if Alaphilippe had gone to that team without those assurances. Tricky #2 choice. Uno-X are too strong to be overlooked by both Tour and Giro.
 
Will be painful for UNO X to go back in their progression and not be able to ride a GT. They really need to be in the top 2 of (2026s) Pro Conti's next year but I don't see it happening with ChinAstana and Tudor. They will have to hope that ASO drops one of their French teams or that Arkea just folds after next year to get WCs for the future. And we'll have to wait and see if Q36.5 gets better, cause they could give them some competition too.

Or ASO surprises and leaves Total at home but given the influence of the French government on the Tour I don't see it happening. Or they leave Tudor at home but that would just be stupid, they already have a squad that's better than multiple WT teams and the first week of the Tour is perfect for both Alaphilippe and Hirschi.

would be sad for team and staff but Arkea folding after 2025 would easy up the things a bit
 
TDF: Tudor can line up a better squad than Uno-X. Total is the only team bothering with suicide breakaways so unless ASO wants us to fall asleep on every sprint stage they should invite them. Also, they actually do have some decent young talent with Burgeaudau, Jeanniere, Jegat, Vercher and Gachinard. I think Uno-X misses out, so maybe they should rethink their strategy because it's very hard to have a PCT team with only 1 or 2 nationalities when you're not French or Belgian.

Giro: It should be Tudor given their performance last year and the lack of better teams interested. 2nd Wild card will probably be Polti, the last one is between Bardiani and Q36.5 and honestly don't see why they would pick Q36.5 over Bardiani even if Pidcock were to ride. Bardiani is an institution of Italian cycling and has done way to much for the Italian cycling scene to be left out.

Vuelta: 2 spots, one will be Kern Pharma. Can't leave them at home after the year they had. Even with Castrillo gone they still have Berrade and 2 nice additions in Sosa and Wenzel. I don't know what the deal is with Caja Rural given their previous clinic issues. It's hard to find an update but they're the strongest Spanish PCT-team on paper this year. And I'd like to see Balderstone, Sorarrain, Gonzalez, Silva in the mountains. And perhaps Iuri Leitao can be competitive in a couple of sprints. That is ofcourse if they're not still in the doghouse. If it isn't Caja than it will be probably be Burgos. I would love to see Jamba make his GT debut.
 
Wild Cards Paris-Nice:
Lotto and Israel has declined their automatic wild cards.
Tudor, Uno-X and Total has been invited and there is one more invitation going out that will be announced earlier.
I'd expect it to be Q36.5 honestly. For me:

Giro: Tudor, Bardiani/Polti Kometa, Q36.5
Tour: TotalEnergies, Tudor
Giro: Uno-X, Kern Pharma

I think ASO will want to give Uno-X one or the other, same with Tudor. Next year expecting Astana to get one automatic and then Tudor and Uno-X competing for the other.
 
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I have noticed a bit of talk on social media the last few days about GT organizers working with UCI on finding a way to increase from 22 to 23 teams if the organizers wants that. Will be interesting to see if it leads to a change.

Let's hope so. It just seems stupid that either Uno-X or Tudor will miss the Tour because Total have to be invited for non-sporting reasons (okay, I know they won a stage last year but almost all bad teams did that).
 
Let's hope so. It just seems stupid that either Uno-X or Tudor will miss the Tour because Total have to be invited for non-sporting reasons (okay, I know they won a stage last year but almost all bad teams did that).
Well Uno-X didn't, so by the standards of wildcards it really wouldn't be that egregious to pick Total instead.

As much as people like to *** on the French calendar and as much as Uno-X are the better team, you do have to consider that the latter have one WT win in their history whereas Total got 4 in 2022 alone and then GT stage wins in both 2023 and 2024. Uno-X outfarming Total is definitely a key part of the difference in ranking at this stage.

Tudor should get the call-up no matter what, if they had to field 2 teams they would still match the combination of one Uno-X and one Tudor lineup blow for blow.
 
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Changing rules out of nowhere when the season has already started and when other teams have battled for automatic invites (ok it wasn't a real battle) would be weird tho. Should look at the possibilities to change things for 2026 onwards, but for 2025? I don't see the UCI doing this, or are they going to say that crashes have nothing to do with the amount of riders in a race anymore (cause that was the original reason to have less riders in races)? UCI would only budge for money, so only if Tudor feels like they're going to be left out and are pushing for it. Or maybe it's the Q guys doing it, cause they are definitely missing out (they should be missing out with 23 teams too honestly).
 
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Tudor should get the call-up no matter what, if they had to field 2 teams they would still match the combination of one Uno-X
I honestly dont think Tudor if they are splitting their team in two equal teams are at the same level as an Uno-X selection of Kristoff, Wärenskjold, Abrahamsen, THJ, Cort, Kron, Leknessund & Hoelgaard for example.

The best possible Tudor lineup with Ala, Hirschi, Storer, Trentin, De Klein, Haller, Zijlard & idk Warbasse or Brenner, is of course on paper stronger - but when going further down the Tudor list to find Dainese, Voisard, Warbasse etc I think they are not strong enough for it being reasonable to say that 2 x 8 from Tudor matches the full Uno-X.
 
As much as people like to *** on the French calendar and as much as Uno-X are the better team, you do have to consider that the latter have one WT win in their history whereas Total got 4 in 2022 alone and then GT stage wins in both 2023 and 2024. Uno-X outfarming Total is definitely a key part of the difference in ranking at this stage.
Not really a fair comparison. Total Energies is going into their 25th year as a professional team and Uno-X is still improving year over year so what happened even 2 years ago is not relevant to today. They do represent a long legacy in the Tour though so I do hope that they sort it out so both teams get to participate.
 
Changing rules out of nowhere when the season has already started and when other teams have battled for automatic invites (ok it wasn't a real battle) would be weird tho. Should look at the possibilities to change things for 2026 onwards, but for 2025? I don't see the UCI doing this, or are they going to say that crashes have nothing to do with the amount of riders in a race anymore (cause that was the original reason to have less riders in races)? UCI would only budge for money, so only if Tudor feels like they're going to be left out and are pushing for it. Or maybe it's the Q guys doing it, cause they are definitely missing out (they should be missing out with 23 teams too honestly).
Well, the main reason for UCI to go along with it would be because both the GT organizers and the teams want it. They could just make a compromise and get the teams and organizers to agree to additional rules changes in order to address safety.
 
I honestly dont think Tudor if they are splitting their team in two equal teams are at the same level as an Uno-X selection of Kristoff, Wärenskjold, Abrahamsen, THJ, Cort, Kron, Leknessund & Hoelgaard for example.

The best possible Tudor lineup with Ala, Hirschi, Storer, Trentin, De Klein, Haller, Zijlard & idk Warbasse or Brenner, is of course on paper stronger - but when going further down the Tudor list to find Dainese, Voisard, Warbasse etc I think they are not strong enough for it being reasonable to say that 2 x 8 from Tudor matches the full Uno-X.

Don't forget that Dainese has won 3 stages in the two lesser GTs and podiumed a TdF stage. Form is temporary and all that, but that also goes for the likes of Kron and Leknessund, who didn't have their best seasons last year either.
 
Well, the main reason for UCI to go along with it would be because both the GT organizers and the teams want it. They could just make a compromise and get the teams and organizers to agree to additional rules changes in order to address safety.

How even. Just decide mid season that teams can only go with 7? That's just ridiculous. Also bigger teams don't make it more unsafe, it was a bad reasoning anyways, more teams do tho, cause it's just means more dodgy sprint trains, more teams wanting to be at the front at all times, etc. Anyways my point remains the same, changin rules like this mid season is weird. You have a rulebook for a reason. I don't believe the UCI is going to go along with it unless they get payed off massively by a certain actor. 2 years ago they didn't even give Israel an invitation and they were threatening with a lawsuit. Also it's not new that GT organizers want more slots, of course they do.
 
How even. Just decide mid season that teams can only go with 7? That's just ridiculous. Also bigger teams don't make it more unsafe, it was a bad reasoning anyways, more teams do tho, cause it's just mean more dodgy sprint trains, more teams wanting to be at the front at all times, etc.
I never said anything about making teams smaller. Adding a 23rd team would add more riders to the race which I have no problem with. I was referring to other types of rules changes that have been discussed for safety like the new sprint rules they have actually implemented.
 
I never said anything about making teams smaller. Adding adding a 23rd team would add more riders to the race which I have no problem with. I was referring to other types of rules changes that have been discussed for safety like the new sprint rules they have actually implemented.

I don't see how that's even relevant. One thing has nothing to do with the other. They are completely seperate. If there are other things to make the races safer they should do it (I don't believe there are a lot of things you can do as it's mostly the riders being unsafe anyways but different discussion), no matter the amount of WCs. The reason the UCI used to make teams smaller was limiting the number of riders in a GT (and other races) because they acted like it would make it more safer (it doesn't, less teams do tho but it's not an option), it would just be weird to go back on that once rich teams start complaining (cause it was never a problem when Pro Teams didnt have stars in their team that would be missing out on some of the biggest races).

Anyways, it doesn't change my point. You have a rulebook for a reason, it would be weird to change things now for this season. For 2026, go ahead, but you can't just tell teams yeah you need to be in the top 2 but then when rich teams with stars aren't in that top 2 out of nowhere we're going to change the rules?
 
The season has hardly started and there are already other rules changes that have been implemented over the break so this idea that changing the rules at this point is out of the question I don't buy at all. Also even if the top 2 pro teams have guaranteed spots, everyone knows that beyond that there are always wild cards. The number of wild cards should have no impact on the situation at all.
 
I honestly dont think Tudor if they are splitting their team in two equal teams are at the same level as an Uno-X selection of Kristoff, Wärenskjold, Abrahamsen, THJ, Cort, Kron, Leknessund & Hoelgaard for example.

The best possible Tudor lineup with Ala, Hirschi, Storer, Trentin, De Klein, Haller, Zijlard & idk Warbasse or Brenner, is of course on paper stronger - but when going further down the Tudor list to find Dainese, Voisard, Warbasse etc I think they are not strong enough for it being reasonable to say that 2 x 8 from Tudor matches the full Uno-X.
Dainese has won a stage in 3 of his last 4 GTs, nobody on either Uno-X or Total can match that and only Cort has 2 of his last 4 (those being the least recent two). It says a lot about how much better Tudor are that a guy like that is probably only good enough for their B lineup.

Also, if you broke Tudor down into two halves doing the same race, you wouldn’t throw their best 8 riders into one team, but rather put Alaphilippe on one and Hirschi on the other. Both are better than any Ardennes types (Kron would be the best) that Uno-X have. Then De Kleijn and Dainese are, at least for GT purposes, both better than whichever of Kristoff and Waerenskjold you designate as sprinter. So that’s already two of your most important slots where Tudor 1 and Tudor 2 both have Uno-X beat, and considering they really only have THJ for the big mountain stages they aren’t winning back ground there (Storer has a much better GT trackrecord, don’t think the average of him and Voisard is much worse than THJ). It’s really just the baroudeurs (Cort and Abrahamsen) where Uno-X would be able to beat split Tudor lineups, and that isn’t enough to turn a deficit into a lead.
Not really a fair comparison. Total Energies is going into their 25th year as a professional team and Uno-X is still improving year over year so what happened even 2 years ago is not relevant to today. They do represent a long legacy in the Tour though so I do hope that they sort it out so both teams get to participate.
Are Uno-X really better this year than last? They’ve gained Kron and not much else, at the expense of their devo setup, their squad depth and an important, still-developing cog in their sprint setup in Gudmestad.

Yes, they are better now than they were in 2022, but the point I’m making is not about Total being better in 2022 but about Uno-X’s results in any given year struggling to match Total’s baseline in the big races in general and the GTs in particular. Of course, that doesn’t need to hold given that Uno-X are stronger on paper, but it is a clear strike against them when it comes to dishing out the GT invites. Aside from Abrahamsen’s antics in the first week last year, they just haven’t done a whole lot with their Tour wildcards and it may be about to bite them.
 
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Are Uno-X really better this year than last? They’ve gained Kron and not much else, at the expense of their devo setup, their squad depth and an important, still-developing cog in their sprint setup in Gudmestad.
Well, I was referring to the completed years which have steadily gone up pretty much year for year. As for this year I absolutely think they are stronger. Kron is a clear upgrade but I also think Simon Dalby will be a pleasant surprise this year. Johannes Kulset is a year older and has a GT in his legs so I'm expecting a lot more from him as well. Leknessund is ready for a revenge year so I expect him to do a lot better as well. The loss of Gudmestad is offset by the addition of Gröndal Jansen who is a very experienced lead out man. Both Tiller and Tobias Halland Johannesen had issues last season as well so they should also be in line to improve or at least get back to their previous levels. On top of all that they added Olav Aleksander Bu as a coach and hopefully that will have an impact on the team from year one even if the main benefit will likely be over several years.

So I'm confident that they will once again improve on their haul of UCI points.
 
Tudor's two GT teams would roughly resemble something like this wouldn't they?

Giro: Trentin, Hirschi, Mayrhofer, De Kleijn, Haller, Lienhard, Eriksson x2
Tour/Vuelta: Alaphillipe, Storer, Warbasse, Dainese, Suter, Haller, Brenner, Lienhard

Both are pretty strong.